THE DARK
by kingsin
Summary: It is a month since Pitch's fall. Though no longer considered a threat, the Nightmare King is still able to wander. One night, Jack comes across Pitch further from his lair than he has been able to previously travel, and confronts him. In-depth summary inside extra descs. O/s


b/g: Set weeks after Pitch's fall in _RotG_. Jack finds Pitch in Burgess, and comes to demand from him a confession concerning the death of Yovell Appleby (now Autumn) which he believes Pitch to have been closely involved in. A spat occurs. Jack goes on to accuse Leo (the spirit of Courage) whom he knows to have been close to Pitch prior to their deaths (i.e. during their mortal lives) and assumes her treachery. Pitch denies.

[Autumn] is a seasonal spirit. In life as the mortal [Yovell Appleby] she was the town herbalist. After rumours ignited that she was witch, she was apprehended and burnt at the stake. Her final act was to give her younger brother and sister enough time to escape whilst she distracted the mob and allowed her own capture. Pitch is said to have caused her death, by stirring fear and paranoia in the townspeople, in an age when concern about witches was rife.

[Leo] is a constellational personification, and known as the chief spirit of courage (though she is not an officially appointed guardian). In life, she was [Alpha-Leonis Perihelion]. She served in the Golden Army as the head of a squadron and was a great ally of Kozmotis Pitchiner. Leonis was killed in action shortly after having to make a terrible choice between the lives of her beloved squadron soldiers and the entirety of the Golden Army. Her decision to sacrifice her soldiers meant the Army gained a huge advantage over the fearling army, despite causing her tragic loss. Her death preceded Pitchiner's. Jack suspects her due to her sudden growing involvement with the guardians, after a reported past (i.e. 000's of years before his reanimation) of distance and disinterest in their cause. It remains unknown whether Leonis has any memory of her former life, though if she does, she does not acknowledge it.

* * *

"What are _you_ doing here?"

"I'm not looking for any trouble, Jack."

Jack was returning from a long day in the company of the Guardians. The job was as full as ever, a constant demand on his strength and patience—but worth it, every moment, to see the world run smoothly, and, more importantly, to see its children safe and happy. Earth belonged to the children; now, and it would in one hundred years time, too, and one hundred hundred years. It was a thought that had never occurred to Jack: that children existed at every second in every corner of the planet. Before his time spent with the Guardians, only Burgess had mattered to him. It were as if he was aware that the rest of the world was there, but it was somehow not wholly real. It didn't quite touch him.

 _Do you stop believing in the sun when clouds block it out?_

Now it was real; very, very real. He had seen it for what it was when he and the Guardians had fought tooth and claw for it. Jack would never un-see it again. It needed him, just as much as he needed the kids who lived in its every city, town and village.

He planted the butt of his staff in the snow and observed Pitch through narrowed eyes.

"You _are_ trouble."

Jack Frost had spotted the discordant spirit from high above, on the thermals. An alley at the end of the parking lot sat in a frigid sort of darkness, one that Jack had only ever seen in one place before: wherever Pitch Black was. Silently, he had dropped from the air down onto the concrete fifty feet below and called out.

Face the Nightmare King alone? He wasn't afraid to, not now; Pitch was weakened from his fall. His army of nightmare creatures had abandoned him. His powers were running low, living off their dregs. After he had gathered enough strength and courage to return to the human world, the Guardians had let him wander, if only for equilibrium's sake. To begin with, these movements had been only around the areas the various entrances to his lair led to: the waterways of Venice, the forest outside Burgess, a gloomy network of backstreets in Berlin, an abandoned railway station in Ireland, a ship graveyard in Sulawesi, Indonesia, and several other locations. They had kept a close eye on him in these early months, watching him mill around, a voiceless entity. Sometimes they observed him looking up at the Moon for extended periods of time, not stirring, then returning to the depths of his environment. Once he had stepped into a pool of the Moon's light, and jumped back, scalded. Five weeks later he tried the same, this time bathing in its rays for a full minute before retreating, blistered and burnt. But silent. Always silent. They had stopped watching him, then. It was clear he wasn't making a comeback any time soon.

And now he was here in Burgess, five miles from his lair. It had only been a month since the previous incident. His power was rising.

But that was not what Jack wanted to confront Fear about, this time.

On the top of the wall overlooking the concrete lot, where he stood like a cat, its safety realised in the advantage of its height, Pitch chased a spec of dust from his sleeve with a grey nail.

"You say the cruellest things," he crooned.

"Well, you see, I prefer to tell people the truth," Jack replied. "Not lie to them."

"Lies are kinder than the truth, Jack Frost."

Pitch was turning away. The lamppost that illuminated the far end of the carpark's wall flickered and died, leaving it in a soft, indeterminable gloom.

"But that's not why you lied to those people, all that time ago—when you told them about Yovell."

Pitch angled his neck, eyes resting with low-lidded calm on the tightening of the boy's fist around the wooden crook. Each of his knuckles were whiter than ice and his young face was stony with menace.

"Yovell?" the King of Nightmares repeated, lightly. "Which one is that?"

Faster than the sprinting of the wind, the weather-worn foot of Jack's staff darted out only to halt inches from his agitator's throat. He jerked it, threateningly, and Pitch moved his head away in response, like a goaded animal.

"The girl you killed."

"The girl whom I. . . _killed_?" Pitch enquired.

"Yeah, killed—the girl you made into a monster in the public eye. The girl you made people afraid of just to make you stronger. The girl who loved to help and to—to inspire, and you spread those lies! You told people she was something else and they took her life. You _killed_ her!"

Jack swung his cane away and then furiously back towards Pitch's neck, in a fit of red rage.

 _Slap._

The ancient spirit caught it fast, the length of a cat's whisker from his face. His expression was blank and level, and did not betray any sign of intimidation. He shoved the curved end of the stick against the winter spirit's chest firmly, and the boy grunted, yielding a step.

"Do I have to break this twig in half again, Jack?"

"Admit it," Jack insisted, his voice rising again. "Admit you did it!"

Pitch twisted the staff sharply and Jack let go in surprise, betraying himself for another, harder, shunt. Again, he lost a step.

"This conversation isn't worth my time."

"No? What else have you got to do? You're weak! Time lost here when you could be cowering in the shadows, that's what your time's worth—"

Pitch Black bared his teeth and lunged forward, but Jack skipped out of reach, continuing to throw his angry taunts.

"You're weak and you know it! We've been watching you, Nightmare King, and you're not a king any more! You're invisible—"

He dodged another swipe from his own crook.

"Powerless—"

Another, missed.

"Pathetic—"

Two more, one from the left, one from the right: both eluded.

"And you're alone."

Jack braced himself for a fourth attack, but none came. He straightened from his light-footed crouch, his breath heavy and excited by his anger.

True to the description, Pitch stood illuminated by the lamplight, a solitary figure, lips tight, staring at the ground with a brow carved in loathing at the accusations.

"You want me to admit it, _fine_ ," he said slowly, not lifting his gaze. The last word was spat from his mouth. "I did it. I told on little Yovell Appleby. I made her her into a bad dream. But I made her what she is today." Pitch raised his head, eyes translucent as he fixed them on Jack. He added, in the softest of his voices, "And isn't that what you wanted?"

Pitch held his hands behind his back loosely, still holding the staff, and Jack pivoted clumsily to follow the circle he was prowling around him.

"After all, the year needs an Autumn. And what is Winter without Autumn, to shoo the leaves away and tell the children it's time to wrap up?"

Jack blinked, unable to reply.

The stick whipped out with the agile movement of a wrist, and he was hurled off his feet in a second. Though the wind caught him, it took him back, urging him to retreat to perching on the wall. A handful of metres away, Pitch smiled.

"Oh, Jack," he purred. It was a cruel sound. He tossed the stick aside. It clattered away across the cold, hard concrete. "You're so scared of losing them, aren't you? Losing your friends. Losing her."

"Shut up," Jack muttered. He didn't feel his height.

"Do you love her, Jack?"

"Shut UP!" Jack yelled. Ignited, he leapt from the wall towards Pitch. The tall spirit jerked away, surprised, and Jack landed on toes and fingers, skidding past in a crouch towards his staff. He grabbed it up and aimed it at Pitch, blasting out a jet of ice. Pitch's hands shot up, Jack assumed, to retaliate with a wall of dark sand, but nothing came. Instead the grey palms only served a pathetic gesture of defence against the ice. It hit its mark, throwing him back like a doll. He struck the ground with an echoing crack, breathing raggedly.

Jack lowered his staff and straightened.

Gingerly, the fallen King was picking himself up.

The Winter spirit had never seen him so fragile. In his head, triumph warred with a strange, hateful sort of pity.

But Pitch's words still stung his ears, and, even as he thought about them, chagrin reared again, fresh and vicious.

"Why couldn't you just stay in the dark, where you belong," Jack said. He waved his staff, not intending to send another blow, but Pitch flinched at the movement. "What is the use in you?"

"The use in _me_?" Pitch replied, in a bitter sneer. "Oh, you can tell you've not been around long." He was backing away, small step by small step.

Jack furrowed his brow, scowling indignantly.

"Long? Try a few hundred years, bogeyman."

Pitch's lip curled.

He snarled, "Try a ' _few_ ' thousand." At the Winter spirit's expression, he let out a short, humourless laugh. "What, you thought you were special? You thought you were tired, having watched the world grow for a handful of centuries? You're just a _child_."

Jack raised his chin.

"Then why am I the one who keeps winning," he replied levelly.

Pitch's mouth tightened and he turned away. The shadows crawled out to meet him.

"And what about Leo? Or Leonis? You know her by that name? Huh? Leonis?"

At Jack's call, the retreating spirit stopped. Jack saw him turn his head, his profile sharp and dark.

"Leonis?" he said, softly.

"You and her go a long way back, don't you? She's your spy, isn't she? You sent her, didn't you—sent her to spy on us."

Jack was not sure where this accusation had come from—but it made sense, as he said it. Two ancient beings, as old as the Moon itself. Sandy had talked of the Golden Age before, once or twice, having lived near that time. But Sandy was a Guardian; as far back as he went, he was strictly on the side of the Moon. Leo, though—Jack understood the role she played, and perhaps it did sound ridiculous in his head, a spirit of Courage working with Fear: but she had never mentioned any loyalty to the Guardians, had she?

"Spy?" Pitch quietly repeated. "No."

"No?" Jack challenged. Impatience nipped at him, and some fatuous urge to force Pitch into retaliation.

Pitch's back was still to Jack.

Jack heard him exude a low chuckle, such a sound that it was not much a laugh any more, only a sound. Like, he thought, a parent in the presence of a child.

"No, Jack. I said no."

"Then she's not a liar and a monster, like you?"

"I SAID _NO_!"

The roar jolted through him like a dozen arrows fashioned of cold, hard fire.

Slowly, Pitch curled his long fingers against his palms, each hand contracting and condensing like a dead spider, legs folding in on themselves.

"Colonel Alpha-Leonis Perihelion of the Corona squadron was, and is, one of the bravest people you or I will ever meet."

The words carried to Jack in a low, steady note—frank but furious. Jack's eyebrows knitted, and curiosity compelled him to lean forward.

But Pitch did not elaborate on that topic.

"As for our dear Yovell—"

Jack's narrowed eyes became trained even more closely on the back of Pitch's head.

"—I tried to _save her_."

The tall spirit turned, a step at a time, shadows carving up his face as he screwed it into a bitter, scowling expression, so laden with despising.

" _I_ made a mistake— _I_ set them on her. Yes." His yellow eyes shone with an inevitable pride that seemed to loathe its own existence. "But I saw when it had gone too far. I _told_ her!"

Pitch's hand sliced the air in a gesture of emphasis, and now his eyes widened as though he were reliving his alleged appeal. "I told her," he accounted, in a hoarsely raised voice, "that if she did not leave, then _she would die._ I even entertained fear within her, in the hope that I could make her leave."

He dropped his hand, and murmured, "but she would not abandon them."

"Her brother and sister," Jack realised, aloud.

"She died for the children. That is how it comes to pass."

Jack walked away. He paced, without direction, across the lot, arriving eventually at the opposite wall of an old warehouse, and falling heavily against it. The information weighed him down as much as it enlightened him. In his heart of hearts, he knew it was because he did not want to see Pitch as anything other than what he always had: a bad person, a cruel force, a villain, _the_ villain. A being of darkness. The enemy. _This_ was complicated; now Pitch was something else, too.

But Jack couldn't admit it. Not yet.

"And Leo. Who did she—die for?" he demanded.

"Perhaps she will tell her new friends, in time."

"But... She doesn't remember anything. Or—she never talks about it."

"No," Pitch agreed, softly, though not to Jack, simply to the sky. He didn't specify which of Jack's speculations were true. Jack shook his head, sharply, like a dog shaking water from its coat.

"This doesn't make any sense."

"You're seeing what you want to see, Jack. Tell me, has Leo ever put yourself or any of your precious guardians or children in any danger?"

Jack hesitated.

"No, but—"

"Has she, in fact, ever given any reason that you might suspect ill of her?"

"No. . ."

"Is all she is guilty of being associated with a dead man who holds some strenuous connection to Pitch Black?"

Jack looked up slowly. His eyes met Pitch's. Pitch smiled.

"Oh, dear, Jack. What mistake have we made now?" he hummed. He turned his head up as the moonlight crept over the edge of a high rooftop and into the carpark. "Tell Autumn that her nightmares say 'hello'. . ."

"I'll give Courage your love," Jack jibed, but it held no substance.

Pitch was chuckling as he slipped back into the shadows.

"If only things were so simple."


End file.
